Dynamically updating privacy settings in a social network

A system comprising:

• a computer processor;
• and
• a privacy engine configured to:
• identify a change in a privacy setting for a user of a social networking system, the change in the privacy setting affecting direct and indirect distribution of one or more items of user data associated with the user to a second user of the social networking system, wherein direct distribution is between the user and the second user, and indirect distribution is between the second user and another user of the social networking system that is connected to the user in the social networking system;
• and
• responsive to the identified change in the privacy setting,
• determine one or more information pathways of the social networking system that are affected by the change in the privacy setting, each information pathway being representative of a different way the user data may be distributed to users of the social networking system, and
• propagate the change to the determined one or more information pathways such that direct and indirect distribution of the user data to the second user is affected in accordance with the changed privacy setting.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions to be executed by a computer processor of computer system to carry out the steps of:

• identifying a change in a privacy setting for a user of a social networking system, the change in the privacy setting affecting direct and indirect distribution of one or more items of user data associated with the user to a second user of the social networking system, wherein direct distribution is between the user and the second user, and indirect distribution is between the second user and another user of the social networking system that is connected to the user in the social networking system;
• and
• responsive to the identified change in the privacy setting,
• determining one or more information pathways of the social networking system that are affected by the change in the privacy setting, each information pathway being representative of a different way the user data may be distributed to users of the social networking system, and
• propagating the change to the determined one or more information pathways such that direct and indirect distribution user data to the second user is affected in accordance with the changed privacy setting.